28 May, 1923 .... NTR was born :::: 2026 May ::: TDP is back in power. Chandrababu Naidu had lost power in 2019. He made a U-turn and worked out a deal with the BJP

“I am a Chief Minister without a state capital,” lamented N Chandrababu Naidu repeatedly in May 2016.

He was not happy the manner Congress-led UPA handed over Andhra Pradesh as a bifurcated state to its people.

He knew the truth is always bitter. And that is BJP too supported creation of Telangana and all that happened in hurry without proper planning. 

“My appeal is to the entire country,” he told some of us at Tirupati rather forcefully.

Fact sheet: If the state of Andhra Pradesh was to recover fully and jump back to its normal course, the state needed to forget the past tragedies and blunders of bifurcation it underwent when Telangana state was born.  

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu was then attempting to reverse what has gone wrong. 

But he also tried to understand how he can achieve new gains.

Blogger with TDP's Muslim cadre! - Tirupati :::: 2016

2026 May ::: TDP is back in power. Chandrababu Naidu had lost power in 2019. He made a U-turn and worked out a deal with the BJP. In 2024 - he got back his state and respect. Chandrababu is NTR's son in law. 

In April-May 1983; Indira Gandhi was in power and in total command of the Congress party. It was more popular as the Congress(I).

In camps in Congress (I) and its ecosystem there was a "belief" and possibly more of a hope, perhaps, that NTR’s celluloid charisma will burn out like a midget meteor, 

... that his ego and lack of intellectual and ideological conviction will rob him of political stamina or throw him into the arms of cynical, opportunistic advisers and sycophants. 

"But there was a growing legion of others who believe that his intentions have already begun to translate into action. 

The secretariat in Hyderabad, for instance, had then transformed in the brief space of the NTR administration," says an analyst.  The May 31, 1983 edition of 'India Today' - then a fortnightly - carried a piece:  

It said: 

"Sitting erect at his medium-size desk in a room on the first floor of his own house at Troop Bazar in Hyderabad, he did not look like a matinee idol. It was 6.30 of a late April morning. 

He had been at his desk since 4, consulting with his close advisers, and receiving early morning callers. His square face framed by large cheek-bones gave him a granite look. The spacious forehead sported thin white strips of vibhuti."

28 May 1923 – 18 January 1996 :: Illustrious NTR 

Was this a Hindu-monk-neta ??   

Few were able to comprehend the meaning of the Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao phenomenon in January; few comprehend it now. 

"He is going too fast," whispered a leading don of the sprawling University of Hyderabad, as if the walls of his living room concealed Telugu Desam ears. 

"He is making serious mistakes. He is rushing towards his own downfall." "They don’t understand him," replies a sympathetic biographer. "He is not from ‘Our India’. He is from the ‘Other India’. He speaks a language we do not understand."

But he had proved prophets of doom wrong.   

In 2016, despite TDP presence in the Modi cabinet and BJP presence in Naidu’s ministry, frictions were already visible. 

A large number of workers at the venue of three-day long Mahanadu (TDP convention) at Tirupati from May 27, 2016 mounted pressure on Chandrababu Naidu) either to "extract" special status from the central government or even take harsh decision of quitting the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

E. Sujata, a district president of TDP Vishakhapatnam unit said in 2016 --

"It is high time we get the Special Status as was promised during the division of the state. We are with the TDP supremo and supported his decision to join NDA in 2014, but now it is high time, the BJP-led Narendra Modi government should deliver".  

But on the other hand both local BJP and RSS leaders deny that the centre was not disbursing adequate funds. 

"Even if funds are released, the chief minister plays politics. He has rechristened various central schemes by giving them local names and also putting his own names and started renaming several schemes as Chandra-anna schemes," said RSS Tirupati president N.V. Srenivas. 

BJP also denied the charge of neglecting Andhra's welfare.

 "The chief minister Naidu is often not practical in drawing schemes. For new capital complex at Amravati, he planned an Rs 52,000 crore new capital Amravati. This plan should have been more realistic," says a local BJP leader.

TDP leader: E Sujatha

Yet. there mat be reasons for optimism.

"The ideology of the RSS for a strong united India has been accepted by the people in Andhra Pradesh. Youths like the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi," said N. V Sreenivas, RSS president of Tirupati Sangh division.

ends